Can Google’s ”Penguin” provide an “Equal Level field”?

World’s largest search engine Google is in the headlines again and this time it’s for the launch of its latest algorithm:”Penguin”

Before its original launch which was on 24th April, 2012, there was buzz about the name of this algorithm. Some mentioned it as “Over Optimization Penalty” while some gave it a name “Webspam Algorithm Update” but finally Google named it “Penguin”.

“Penguin” means a very rare species available only in Antarctica region which cannot fly. So is the basic functioning of this algorithm, which tries to find out those website(s) which are violating Google’s terms and conditions (explained below) and are banned or removed from its search engine database.

What Google wants to achieve with “Penguin”?

Through “Penguin”, Google wants that website should depend less on “SEO” and more on “Quality content”, secondly to provide “equal field to all web players” and finally since with the increase in web traffic, web spam has also increased considerably. So, in order to overcome it, Google keeps launching algorithms like “Panda”, “Page Layout” and now “Penguin”.

What does “Penguin” take into consideration?

Main things that will be covered under “Penguin” are: Keyword Stuffing, Cloaking, Link Schemes, and other stuff related to inbound link spam. Those sites that will be caught under above mention spam will be removed from the search engine either completely or else their ranking will be severely affected.

How to know if your website is hit by “Penguin”?

The update launched on April 24. Look at your search-related traffic from Google immediately after that date. Do you see a major drop compared with a day or two before? If so, you were probably hit by Penguin. See a rise in traffic? You probably benefited from Penguin. See no change? Then it really had no impact on you.

How to recover if your website is affected by “Penguin”?

Sites affected by Penguin will be removed from the search engine as per terms of Google. Google says this is an algorithmic change; it’s a penalty that’s applied automatically, rather than a human at Google spotting some spam and applying what’s called a manual penalty. Because of that, Google said that reconsideration requests won’t help with Penguin. The only option available if you hit by “Penguin” is to again revive your website.

It is just the starting phase of Google’s battle against the countless websites having web-spam and other techniques which are violating Google’s terms and conditions via Panda, Page Layout and now Penguin. In days to come it will be interesting to see how Google brings more such algorithms and updates in order to provide “Equal level field” for all web players.